Sing Them Home

by Stephanie Kallos

  Soon, clothes are shed. Auras start changing color. Pheromones begin discharging with the force of firearms.

  The quilt has beguiled them, that is how the women feel. The quilt—with its suggestive colors, its cascading shapes—has charmed them out of their confusion, malaise, melancholy.

  Gaelan never meant for the quilt to be the trump card in his sexual life, really he didn’t, but the truth is, nothing closes the deal on sex like a sad story, even if it’s not the whole story.

  Eventually, the women get over whatever troubles brought them here. Healed, they move on, long before it occurs to them to probe more deeply into the history of the decorative anomaly that graces the weatherman’s bed. In the end, he’s nothing more than a great lay and the quilt is just a pretty bedspread.

  “My folks met at a Fleetwood Mac concert.”

  “I remember,” Gaelan replies, in 1975. “Beer or wine?”

  “Beer’s good if you’ve got something low-carb.”

  “I do.” Gaelan is in the kitchen area of the condo. As he pours the beer into a glass, he gazes at the back of Rhiannon’s head. She’s sitting across the room on the sofa, absentmindedly playing with her hair, looking around. She seems distracted, tired. Maybe her blood sugar is low. “Help yourself to the hummus,” Gaelan reminds her.

  “According to Mom,” Rhiannon continues, “I was conceived while they were listening to a bootleg recording.”

  “That’s such a great story,” Gaelan says, coming back into the living room. “Here you go.”

  “I’m just glad they didn’t name me ‘Stevie.’”

  Gaelan laughs as if he hasn’t heard this before. He settles beside her, stretching an arm across the back of the sofa, fingering a few wisps of her hair. Her neck is warm, still damp. They both showered at the gym right before coming here. “‘Stevie’ wouldn’t suit you at all,” he murmurs. “You are definitely a Rhiannon.”

  He likes thinking about how the two of them were naked together (at the same time but in different rooms) only half an hour ago. She smells like melted candy canes. He can’t wait to taste her—but he will. Waiting, even a little bit, makes it all that much better.

  She adjusts her body on the sofa. Gaelan removes his hand, takes a swig of beer. “I think somebody told me once that it’s Gaelic or something,” she adds. “Irish, maybe. Or Welsh.”

  “Really.” This information is new. “I’ve got a book about Welsh mythology. Let me see if I can find it. Can I get you anything while I’m up?”

  “No, thanks. I’m good.”

  “Be right back.” Gaelan goes down the hall into his bedroom. He thinks the book is in the closet with some other stuff he never looks at: old yearbooks, college textbooks, letters. There isn’t much; Gaelan isn’t the type to hoard mementos.

  Yeah, here it is: Land of My Fathers: A Collection of Welsh Lore and Poetry.

  He opens to the inscription on the flyleaf: To my big brother, a Welsh-man through and through and my hero always. Love, Bonnie. Christmas 1984.

  “Found it,” he calls out.

  Nineteen eighty-four. Shit. In 1984, the woman in the next room was nine.

  Gaelan thumbs through the book till he finds what he’s looking for. “Here we go: Rhiannon,” he calls out.

  “What?” Her voice sounds startled, as if she was dozing.

  “Here’s what the book says about your name.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “‘Rhiannon is the great Welsh goddess, able to take many forms.’”

  “Huh.”

  “‘She often appears as a white horse and is accompanied by three sweetly singing birds …’”

  “Are there pictures?” Rhiannon calls out. “Let me see.”

  As Gaelan starts to leave the bedroom, something falls out of the book. It’s a letter. He stoops to pick it up; realizing who it’s from, his chest constricts: a fabric of sinew and tissue being pierced with too-small sutures, too close together, pulled tight.

  “Oh my God,” Rhiannon says, her voice close.

  “What?” In a panic, Gaelan looks up. But she’s not looking at him; she’s standing a few feet away from him at the bedroom door. “What?” he repeats more evenly, stuffing the letter back into the book, hiding the book behind his back.

  “Your quilt,” Rhiannon says, breathless. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “It’s a family heirloom, kind of. My mother designed it.”

  “You’re kidding. Hey, is that the book?” She takes a few steps toward him and reaches for it, but Gaelan redirects her hand, pulls her into his arms, lets the book fall to the floor and—as they start to kiss—kicks it under the bed.

  “Lucky me,” he murmurs between kisses, as the clothes come off, as they segue to horizontal, “I brought a goddess home.”

  Two orgasms later (hers, not his), Gaelan takes a break.

  “That was soooo nice,” Rhiannon says, sighing and stretching.

  She seems sincere. That’s a relief. After the alarming realization that he was having a problem with his dick, Gaelan redirected the proceedings with the liberal application of his fingers and tongue.

  He asks, because he always enjoys hearing about it (women are so inventive and vivid in their descriptions), “What was it like?”

  “Hmmmm,” she muses, closing her eyes. She really does look pretty happy. “There was a kind of whiteout sensation, like being snow-blind.” She stretches again. “And it was minty.” She kisses him, making slow circles with her tongue around the inside of his mouth, pulling lightly at his lips with her teeth.

  In Gaelan’s netherlands, nothing. Not a damned thing.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to try again?” she whispers. She starts to reach for him, but he catches her hand, pulls it to his mouth.

  “Not today,” he says decisively, as if this was his plan all along. He moistens her fingers and then directs them back under the sheets and inside; her vaginal walls are still warm, engorged, wet. “Let’s just focus on you.”

  Rhiannon gasps, closes her eyes.

  It’s not so bad. It’s nice, actually, knowing he can send a woman somewhere, even if it means going away from him.

  Inside of her, their fingers move together with escalating urgency. Rhiannon moans, arches her back, sails away.

  “That’s it,” Gaelan whispers, as she goes farther and farther. “Come on, come on, let’s make a blizzard.”

  They’d originally talked about going to a movie, but only in an iffy kind of way. In the end Rhiannon decides to go to the library. They’ll meet up tomorrow, at the Y.

  “I feel a little guilty,” she says as he walks her to the door. “You know, about …”

  “Don’t,” Gaelan breaks in. “Guilt is a completely useless emotion.” It’s a stock line offered in response to a frequently heard sentiment, but it seems to be reliably reassuring.

  They kiss. She leaves. In spite of certain disappointments about the way the afternoon played out, Gaelan has every reason to believe that they’ll be seeing a lot of each other.

  After reassuring himself in the shower that there’s nothing wrong with his equipment per se, Gaelan decides to stay in; he’ll order a pizza, watch a DVD from his collection. Maybe a comedy like Twins or Kindergarten Cop or didn’t Arnold make a movie with Dolly Parton?

  He strips the bed, stuffs the sheets into the washer, and cleans up the dishes.

  He calls Godfather’s Pizza and places his order for delivery.

  He sits down at his computer and does a Google search.

  This leads him to learn that the psychological causes of erectile dysfunction include stress, anxiety, guilt, depression, low self-esteem, indifference, bereavement, nerves, relationship problems, exhaustion, and latent gayness. A UK-based Web site implores him to not do anything like purchase pills or potions off the Internet or from blokes in pubs. Another site reassures him that with the advent of prescription drugs, things like peni
le injections, internal splints, and pellets inserted down the urinary pipe (Shouldn’t that be up the urinary pipe? Gaelan wonders, fending off a wave of nausea) are rarely necessary options.

  It’s only that this kind of thing has never happened to him before, not even a little. He’s always just been there in full force when called upon to perform.

  Enough. He gets up, remakes the bed with fresh sheets and pillowcases, replaces the quilt. He makes smooching noises. Kate and Spencer emerge from wherever they were hiding, trot over to rub against his legs, and then jump onto the bed.

  When he leans in to pet them, his foot touches something.

  The book. He’d forgotten all about it.

  Tucked inside is a fifteen-page pamphlet (A Spoonful of Love: The Story of the Welsh Love Spoon by Elwyn Hughes) and the letter from Bethan that he didn’t remember was in there, and which he didn’t want Rhiannon to see. He sits down on the bed and reads:

  Dearest G, I would have made one of these for you if I could …

  Gaelan remembers the gift that accompanied this letter. He hasn’t seen it for years. He has no idea where to look for it.

  Bethan’s letter continues: I hope you like it. I had Dad and Mom on the lookout for someone who’d carve a custom-ordered Love Spoon for me last summer when they were in Wales. (Knowing it was for you, I provided very specific instructions.)

  Here’s what it all means:

  The heart is a pretty obvious symbol, likewise the keyhole and key, but I don’t care. You are the gatekeeper to my heart.

  The vines symbolize the growth of love—and of course remind me of Viney. Twisted together like this they’re also meant to show two becoming one.

  The four-leaf clover is for that old poem by Ella Higginson. And your mom, of course.

  And finally, there’s the comma/teardrop shape, known as the “soul” motif. No one knows exactly how this symbol got to Wales and started showing up on gravestones and Love Spoons. Some people think it arrived via Arabian pirates incarcerated on the Isle of Mon—isn’t that a tale?—who, as practicing Muslims, would have used this shape as representative of the soul (the soul originating from the breath, the breath/soul entering and leaving the body through the nostrils, thus the nostril/comma/teardrop shape). I know: nostrils aren’t exactly romantic, but the main thing is, the shape symbolizes eternal devotion. Which is what I give you, my love, now and forever. Bethan.

  Gaelan tucks the letter and the pamphlet back into the book and sets it on the nightstand. He should feel something. Regret, shame, longing, something.

  He stuffs the sheets into the dryer. He turns off the radio, feeds Kate and Spencer their dinner. He inserts True Lies into the DVD player, muting the sound.

  Then he settles back on the sofa, lights a joint, and waits for the pizza man.

  Everything looks just the way it did before Rhiannon arrived. It’s as if she was never here.

  Hope’s Diary, 1965:

  A Spilling Over Life

  Now I know the meaning of the expression “easy baby.” I can’t believe the effect that Gaelan is having on his sister. It’s as if he’s the twin she’s been expecting. “What took you so long?” she seems to be wondering. “I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for you.”

  They stare at each other until they fall asleep.

  Here’s how I manage the embarrassment of household chores, my inability to keep up: Somehow I feel that if I leave the clean laundry in the basket, it’s contained and thus tidy. Ditto with the dishes: If I fill the large soup pot with dishwashing liquid and plop the dirty dishes and silverware in there, it’s more acceptable than just leaving them about on the counter. I take on the dishes one at a time, resting in between.

  I do not always feel kind to them, these babes who bless me, torture me, provide me with my greatest joy and my deepest sorrow. They are the ones, after all, who generate most of this mess. There is evidence of them everywhere—of Llewellyn and I, there is barely a trace. The children make themselves known with clutter; we, the adults, with our compulsive tidiness and grown-up ways, have erased ourselves. No one would suspect that anyone lives here except a tribe of feral homo sapiens. Our own little “Lord of the Flies” island.

  Motherhood is changing my reading habits, of all things. Reading more short fiction vs. novels now, also more poetry—which seems to be the only thing I can manage at the end of a day spent with two children in diapers. A good poem gives me more food for thought than two hundred pages of “War and Peace.”

  I quip. I really have no idea. I’ve never read “War and Peace,” nor am I likely to anytime soon.

  Both babes teething and nothing to be done. Pretended I was in Italy and had an early drink. It was that or give over to the too tight stringing sensation in my nerve endings and scream back at them. A glass of red wine at eleven-thirty in the morning wouldn’t be out of place in Florence. That was my justification.

  Larken has earned a new nickname: the little shark. She bit Gaelan on the arm the other day so hard that she drew blood. She’s been using her teeth as weapons more and more lately—although up to this incident, her primary targets were teething rings and Mommy. With me, she’s been testing: First there were little rhythmic nibbles, then the gentle chomp, then the full-fledged (and painful) bite. Her impulse doesn’t seem to arise out of a desire to hurt so much as curiosity, over whelming affection, and/or excitement—feelings that are so big that they cannot be contained in her tiny body.

  Nevertheless, it’s unacceptable.

  I’d been consistently ineffectual in my efforts to break her of this habit, using the same tactic over and over again, rebuking her with a harsh voice—“No biting!”(as if she were a puppy) —but when she bit her brother I couldn’t stand it anymore; I grabbed her, applied my fully formed adult teeth to her chubby baby forearm, and bit her back—not hard enough to break the skin, mind you, but hard.

  For a moment she was so shocked that she forgot to cry. I almost laughed.

  This passed, of course, and after that she howled inconsolably for a good forty-five minutes. Since Gaelan was still crying from his injury, it was a noisy morning.

  I doubt that this is the sort of disciplinary tactic recommended by Dr. Spock, but in my defense, she hasn’t bitten any humans for three days.

  On the flip side, she hasn’t bitten anything, not even a zwieback. She flatly refuses any form of nourishment that has not been pureed. Which of course means that I must spoon-feed her everything.

  My clever, obdurate girl. I believe she is taking her revenge.

  Viney took the children for a while today after work—angel that she is—so I could get a decent rest. Which I did, thank God. Feel like a new woman!

  Kids are home now and outside—I’m watching them from the kitchen window—so I thought I’d scribble a bit while they’re entertaining themselves. Sitting down to do this practically guarantees that they’ll be here momentarily, however. They have some sort of sixth sense about my music and/or writing time; they can be ignoring me all day, happily playing, but within seconds of my sitting down at the piano or with my diary, it’s “MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY!” and then I must go and

  God. This is pathetic. Whining about my children on a day when I’ve even had a respite from them.

  I remember that old calendar in Uncle Jim’s store, the WWII one. The images on that calendar are still so clear in my mind. Mothers, stoically gazing over the bowed heads of their children as they prayed for Daddy to come home. I loved those images. I loved that idea of motherhood.

  Here they come. More later.

  * * *

  It’s always fun to try to divide people into two groups, as in “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who see the glass as half-empty and those who see it as half-full.”

  Today I am thinking of another way to polarize humans: It seems to me that there are people in the world who are able to contain their lives, neatly, calmly. They create boundaries that allow them to function in whatever wa
y is called for at the present moment. They ignore their children, for example, when that is an appropriate response. They pay their bills precisely at the same time every month, clean the bathroom on Wednesdays, plan a week’s worth of menus.

  I am in the other category. There is spillage everywhere, even in the garden. When I’m angry at Llewellyn, I take it out on the rosemary bushes, which are spilling into the thyme bed, selfish rosemary bushes that I used to long to grow as a badge of my own virtue, since it is said that the Virgin cast her cloak upon one.

  Motherhood is messy in so many more ways than I expected. A chaos of emotions and laundry. A life without boundaries, splitting at the seams and spilling over everywhere.

  Chapter 15

  Kummerspeck

  Something is wrong with the weatherman. His face has a peculiarly dewy expression, as if he’s in the process of becoming his own graphic, a kind of human cartoon in service of the ten-day forecast: cloudy with a chance of showers.

  People all over Lancaster and Hamilton counties are worried. It’s not the first time in recent weeks that the KLAN-KHAM viewing audience has found their attention straying. Ever since Gaelan Jones, weatherman, returned from his brief hiatus in late August, he’s failed to exude his usual confidence and charm. Some viewers—including scores of women—have even jumped ship, changed the channel, and started watching Brock Garrison, Meteorologist. Brock Garrison isn’t as easy on the eyes as Gaelan Jones, but at least they don’t find themselves fretting about his emotional health.

  It’s true that Gaelan has been experiencing unaccountable and sudden bursts of feeling during his live television segments. Up until today, he’s been successful in containing and sublimating these feelings—or so he believes: The truth is that the camera sees everything, reveals everything. The merest suggestion of a sad or errant thought is easily perceived. This is why the viewing audience is leaving, the ratings are down, the sponsors are worried, and the station owners are making contingency plans.